OPINION AND ANALYSIS | 22-06-2019 08:50

Put the blame on Argentina

People
who are worried by the recent proliferation of “populist” movements in Western countries are prone to see Juan Domingo
Perón lurking in the background. Donald Trump has been
compared to him and so too has the new Italian “strongman”
Matteo Salvini.

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TrumPerón. | OP-ART: JOAQUIN TEMES

Argentina is a keen importer of foreign political fashions because, as is the case elsewhere, many who
are unhappy with their lot are looking for causes to
support and if they spot an appealing one they will
eagerly take it up, especially if it originated in an
“advanced” country. Most come from the United States, a
country whose “soft power”, if by that one means an ability to
influence the behaviour of others by showing them what can
be done, remains as potent as ever.

When, as often happens, outside the US the
current occupant of the White House is treated
as the devil reincarnate, people the world over
take a strong interest in what his critics say and
do. As a result, they start playing a passive role
in the North American socio-political drama.
They can do this even if they are consumed by a
burning hatred of Yankee imperialism; on wilder
fringes of the Democratic Party many share their
trenchant views. According to those who keep
a close eye on social media, the sprightly young
congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez already has numerous followers in Argentina and
other Latin American countries. Gender issues
took off here as spectacularly as they did thanks
in large measure to the vigorous campaigns
being waged by feminists and gay rights advocates in the US.

Argentina can also claim to be a big exporter
of political fashions, among them the biggest of the lot. People
who are worried by the recent proliferation of “populist” movements in Western countries are prone to see Juan Domingo
Perón lurking in the background. Donald Trump has been
compared to him and so too has the new Italian “strongman”
Matteo Salvini. That may be going a little too far as neither seem
to have much love for the trade unions that Perón and his successors used as battering-rams,
but it is undeniable that, like
the general, both have succeeded in mobilising the dissatisfaction many people feel and
convinced them that snooty
ruling elites are to blame.

This is something the Peronists have always been very
good at; no doubt they could
teach their counterparts
abroad plenty of other useful
tricks. After all, unapologetic
Peronists still run much of the
local show despite being accused by their opponents of having caused every bit as much harm to Argentina as the enemies
of Trump, Salvini et al predict their bugbears will provoke in
their own countries. What is more, Pope Francis is a Peronist
and is using his bully pulpit to lambast critics of the movement
who resort to what he called “lawfare” in order to reduce the
electoral chances of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Populism, which can be taken to mean giving people what
they say they want without worrying about the probable medium-term or long-term consequences which, in any event, can
always be pinned on evildoers who hate the common man, let
alone any ethical questions that may arise, is thriving because
these days hardly anyone likes the way things are. Some people
want to go back in time to when their own prospects seemed
brighter, others peer hopefully into the future. Few feel that, on
the whole, it would be best to prolong the status quo.

This was not always the case. Most of our ancestors assumed
that unless something dreadful happened the lives of their
grandchildren would be much the same as those of their grandparents and it would be foolish to think otherwise. They were
fatalists who had resigned themselves to whatever life had in store for them. But then the word
got round that everybody was entitled to a far
better deal than the one they had been given and
that, with a combination of luck and effort, they
could get it.

For a couple of centuries, the expectations
thus engendered gave rise to a number of utopian
schemes that would allegedly benefit all humankind, apart from individuals associated with the
old order which would soon either be left behind
to rot or disposed of to clear the way for the rest.
The most ambitious of these schemes failed catastrophically, producing little but mountains of
corpses, but even so there are plenty of people
who would like to make yet another attempt to
make some of them work.

After the Soviet Union bit the dust, such individuals decided to keep a low profile for a
while, but of late they have been making something of a comeback though, with the rise of what is known as “identity politics”,
the men and women who want existing societies to be dismantled and then rebuilt in accordance with their own specifications
are confronted by contradictions to which, for what presumably
are tactical reasons, many turn a blind eye, hence the strange
alliance militant feminists in the US have forged with even
more militant Islamists. Ironically, those who until recently
dreamed of universal brotherhood are now fervently supporting
the demands of campaigners who want their favourite “minority” to be given special privileges at the expense of everyone
else.

When Mauricio Macri took office, he said – as Néstor Kircher
had said over a decade earlier – that he wanted Argentina to
become a “normal” country, by which, unlike the man from
Santa Cruz, he meant one purged of populism that managed its
affairs in a sensible manner, jailed corrupt politicians and obeyed the international rules. Neither he nor anyone else imagined
that during his time in office the countries which in his view
and that of many others best embodied “normality”, the US and
the UK, would be accused of going populist, or that in much of
Europe similar forces would soon be in a position to challenge
the established order.

Populism is a product of widespread disgruntlement plus
short-sightedness. It is adopted when enough people get fed up
with trying to overcome difficulties in a reasonable manner
because it takes too long and can be painful. This is what happened here many decades ago. Since then, Argentina has progressed less on the economic front than any other non-Communist country. Her experience should serve as a warning to
others, but as few think something similar could happen to them
or their descendants, whatever could be learned from Argentina’s
past and present is likely to go unheeded.